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| Pakistan: Dangers of Islamization | | 
By Farooq Ganderbali
One of the most talked about phenomenon in Pakistan today is Islamization. True, Pakistan is constitutionally an Islamic State, but the ramifications of militant Islam spreading across society and the military in particular today seems to threaten Pakistan’s very existence.
The problem of course, is that early on in the creation of Pakistan, its founders adopted a policy of Islamization. While President Ayub Khan set the tone, it was President Zia-ul Haq who introduced Islam in a big way into the military. On seizing power, he set out to implement his plan to establish a true Islamic system of government. He introduced fundamental changes in the Army by introducing Islam into the way it operated. This was the first time that Islam had official sanctity in the military.
General Zia’s first move was to change Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s original Army motto from ‘Unity, Faith, and Discipline’ to ‘Faith, Piety, and Jihad for the sake of Allah’. This move along with the declaration that he, the top Army official and leader of the nation, was a ‘soldier of Islam’, established the new Army mindset. Today, many of those who were recruited or promoted by Zia are in seats of power in the Army. It is therefore, necessary to understand this creature known as Islamization and its implications.
The military in Pakistan is a professional institution. However, in its efforts to project an image as defender of Pakistan, the Army takes recourse to religion to maintain primacy of position in society. With a recruiting base largely based out of the Punjab, this force has maintained the anti-India stance, without too much difficulty. However, as the force seeks to broaden its recruitment base and more personnel get inducted from KPK, Balochistan and other provinces (though still in small numbers) this brings with it the potential for radical elements penetrating the Army.
There is little doubt that radical Islam is being preached by sections of the Army. Its generals and senior rank officers use it to meet their ends. Also, one should not forget that the Army has supported religious groups who are a political force within Pakistan. Terrorist organizations like the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba have been created and supported as a matter of State policy, thus intensifying the Islamic factor. Preaching radical/militant Islam has also had a blowback in that serving or retired personnel get attracted to militant ranks, who are then used to attack targets within Pakistan.
The growing of beards in the Pak military may be in fashion, but its implications from a politico-religious point of view needs to be understood. The Army which should be a-political, is today the largest political entity on the landscape. Successive Army chiefs have controlled and exercised power and authority from GHQ Rawalpindi, without so much of a fuss, either directly or indirectly. Political power and patronage has increased both in government and civil society. General Pervez Musharraf began the trend of inducting retired Army officers into government bureaucracy.
The present Army chief Gen. Raheel Sharif has gone one step ahead, and come up with Military Courts, thus signalling the Army’s intention to move into the judicial domain also. Thus, civil society has the Army looking down upon it from every angle. There is too much of this military business, with every other institution/organization being headed by a retired Army officer. And yet, the tragedy is that the Army has been unable to meet the challenge of terrorism.
Partly, this is because of the state policy of using non-state actors for asymmetric warfare against India and Afghanistan. It is also because the state (read ISI) has used terrorists, split terrorist organizations and used every trick in the book to keep its finger in each pie. This is the root cause of the present malaise in Pak society. Without doubt, the Pak Army has been at the receiving end, ever since the first operations in Waziristan and Swat in 2007. But Peshawar was a dastardly attack, indirectly targeting the Army by killing innocent school children. So what’s new? This has happened in the past too, with terrorists targeting schools for teaching children the realities of modern life as opposed to the teachings in the Madrassas. This happened in Afghanistan too. No one quite raised a shindig when that happened. In that sense, Peshawar saw public outrage because it was direct Army territory!
The fact is that the Army today needs breathing space. It has to consolidate its gains in the anti-terror war, both for its own credibility and for showing to the US that Pak is moving in the right direction. Without this public display of ‘success’ it would be difficult for the forces to maintain their socio-political supremacy. Thus, there is a semblance of effort to hang those terrorists who the Pak state anyway does not want. They are not the assets. The likes of Lakhvi, who is dear to the ISI and military is safely kept in jail!
There is another threat that is at Pakistan’s door and that is the Islamic State led by Al-Baghdadi in Iraq and Syria. The IS is recruiting and gaining allegiances in Pakistan, its tactics are being copied by local militant organizations, including the Afghan Taliban. Additionally, the concert between IS and TTP factions poses a new threat to the Pak state. While the threat may be dormant at the moment, it is likely that given heightened levels of Islamization within society, one may witness another form of blowback from IS.
Therefore, Islamization is a potent reality in Pakistan today. It has its roots in the efforts of Pak leaders to legitimise the existence of the state created on religious lines in 1947. The dangers this poses to the existence of the Pak state itself has been raised from time to time, but never so more today as terrorist organizations threaten the very survival of the nation.
(Opinions expressed in write-ups/articles/Letters are the sole responsibility of the authors and they may not represent the scoopnews.in)
Editor, Scoop News
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